• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

CRONEM Conference 2007 – Ruth Mauri, Torino University

Comparisons of new and old forms of nationalism

CHANGING POLITICAL SPACES, STILL NATIONAL HISTORY

HOW SÉKOU TOURE’S REVOLUTIONARY GUINEA CONNECTED TO OLDER FORMS OF NATIONALISM.

Abstract

The discussion we propose focuses on the historical period when many African colonial territories and colonies managed to get political independence from their former mother country. This period was characterized by the new national leader’s need to legitimize their power. Even if they often called themselves revolutionary, many leaders continued to use some historical categories and language commonly widespread during colonial period in order to enforce the rightness of this political shift. The way national history is taught inside newly independent African states is an interesting way to understand how these new leaders described their own history. How did the historical narration develop the new African nationalism? How did this new form of nationalism differ from the colonial one?

The narration of history in French colonial school was deeply connected with the mission to civilize. It was in the early morning when African students were standing in front of the French flag singing the national hymn that they had their early morning contact with colonial nationalism. In was the in the class, while reading such books as Mamadou et Bineta sont devenus grands, that nationalism was pouring into their eyes and ears.

What happened then after independence? How did the new African leaders describe the same political history? We propose to think about the way historical narration changed inside a new political space, i.e. the independent state and to compare it with the old form. Of course in this analysis we will consider not only colonial books, but also public discourses and speeches, often broadcasted on the radio since in these countries we consider a few people did have the possibility to go to school and the ability to read and write. The aim of this analysis is to understand how in a changing political environment, national narration presents elements of stillness often if covered by revolutionary propaganda. 1 1.1 Historical narration as a fixed mirror

There are three truths, my truth, your truth and the truth. Amadou Hampâté Ba

We propose to approach historical narration as if it was a fixed mirror. It can be considered a mirror since both text books in the colonial era and speeches in the independence period describe the political leaders’ image of indigenous societies and the subsequent information the school systems attempet to pour into to the minds of students. Why then a fixed mirror? Because this mirror does not give us the opportunity to see what is behind the glass. We tend to think that historical narration describes reality, when in fact it usually describes the point of view of political leaders who try to legitimate their political programme, just as fixed mirror has been placed in a particular position within the national furniture by someone. By this we mean that the school history programs were a political tool in the hands both of French colonizers (who settled an educational system in French West Africa in order to develop the administrative structure for the implementation of mission civilisatrice) and of the Parti Démocratique de Guinée (P.D.G.) single party - which governed Guinea from 1958 to 1984 and developed its ideology through the Cultural Revolution. In this paper we will focus particularly on the division of history into periods, on the role of the national heroes and on the description of African authenticity. In the first part we will outline the history narration in the colonial era and - in the second part – in the PDG era. Subsequently we aim to illustrate how the new PDG nationalism was characterized by both new and old techniques and to support the theory that the postcolony was not just a realm of political discontinuities but also of continuities. In order to support this theory we will make reference to primary sources such as Mamadou et

Bineta sont devenus grands1 - the colonial text book used in French West Africa in the 40’s of the XIX century - as well as books written by the PDG such as Du Processus de l’Evolution historique de la Socitété Humaine2, Diversité Culturelle, Unité Culturelle, Unité Nationale3, several articles

1 See A. Davesne, J. Gouin, Mamadou et Bineta sont devenus grands. Livre de français à l’usage des cours moyens et supérieurs des Ecoles de l’Afrique Noire, Librarie Istra, Paris, 1939. 2 See Sékou Touré Ahmed, Du Processus de l’Evolution Historique de la Société Humaine, RDA, n.177, Conakry , Bureau de presse de la présidence de la République populaire révolutionnaire de Guinée, 1981. 3 See Parti – Etat de Guinée, Diversité Culturelle, Unité Culturelle, Unité Nationale, Revue du Parti – Etat de Guinée, N. 93, , Imprimerie nationale « Patrice Lumumba », novembre 1975, Conakry 2 from Horoya4 newspaper and a 1965 tourist guide5 of Guinea. We will also use secondary sources such as academic works6 and some interviews with Guinean exiles we made in Paris area7. The analysis of these sources gives us a double opportunity. First of all to get to know the know- how African students had to absorb in the school system and what they used to study about the community they belonged to. Secondly we will find out the image the French and PDG political élites had of African history and authenticity, since - as we said - this historical mirror has been placed by specific political actors.

1.a A mission to civilize “Our programmes’ content is not just a simple pedagogical affair. The student is a tool of the indigenous politics” Brévié, General Governor of French West Africa from 1930 to 1936.8

The French Minister of Education gave imprimatur to those colonial text books which were considered useful in bringing French ideology and political guide-lines into colonized societies. From the French point of view, sowing categories and dogmas among the young indigenous generations, would further the acceptance of the regime and thus guaranteeing both more stability and a greater efficiency for its long-term politics. Of course we should not presume that all of the African students accepted the content of these books without opposing any resistance. The problem for many students was that they were beginning to experience a frustrating alienation: they were too far from the citizens’ rights French people enjoyed and already much too far away from the communities they came from. The combination of this intense psychological struggle, as well as the deep political legacy of the school system is conveyed through the following dialogue between an African student and a colonial teacher written by the Guinean writer Fantouré Alioum:

Forgetting the student’s self-esteem problems, the Teacher hurried up to ask a question: “Why do you want to be a lawyer?” - Am I not allowed to do this, Sir? - Of course you are, but there is always a motivation… - I do not like injustice, he said with a clean voice, almost a sharp one. - Nobody admits it any more, Mainguai. - The colonial regime is an affair based on injustice… The teacher shook. “Aren’t you reading some bad literature?” He asked himself before answering back:

4 Horoya was the only national newspaper in Guinea during the PDG era. 5 See The Secretary of State for Information and Tourism, Guinea and its people, Office of the Secretary of State for Information and Tourism, Conkary, 1965. 6 See G. Kelly, The presentation of Indigenous society in the schools of West French Africa and Indochina, 1918 to 1938, in « Comparative Studies in Society and History », Vol. 26, No.3 (Jul. 1984), pp. 523-542; Conklin Alice, A mission to civilize. The Republican idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1930, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1997; A. Moumouni, L’éducation en Afrique, Présence africaine, Paris, 1998; 7 We Interviewed Mr. Bah Thierno in Paris, 27th April 1007 Mrs. Sangare Keita Mafila in Noisy le-Grand Mont d’Est, 27th April 2007 and Mr. Bah Mamadou in Taverny, 28th April 2007.

8 See Circulaire n. 107 E du 8 avril 1933 in Bull.de l’Ed. En A.O.F., n. 83, avril-juin 1933 cited by A. Moumouni, L’éducation en Afrique, Présence africaine, Paris, 1998, p.55. 3 - However you will serve this regime, becoming a lawyer. The law you will practice and use, will be all the same the result of this colonial affair you challenge, rather aggressive.9

If African people wanted to benefit from a school education, they had to accept the French authority and the legacies of a political system based on a strong hierarchy between white and black people. African students were given a school system in order to improve the colonizers’ administration capacities and for this reason they had to understand where the power came from. We will try here to find out some guiding lines of the colonial narration of African identity but we do not have to forget that French West Africa schooling politics changed for two main reasons all along the colonial era. First of all, colonizers did not find a tabula rasa in African territories so they had to face local traditions and at the beginning of the XX century the Government General decided to respect them as long as they did not “conflict with the principles of civilization as defined by the Third Republic”10 and it had to face African protests all along the consolidation of the French administration. Then we have to remember that several General Governors of French West Africa pursued different politics. As the historian Alice Conklin shows in her book A mission to civilize11 the French native politics was not linear but changed according for example to the rejection of assimilation as inappropriate and politically dangerous12, to the elimination of local chiefs13, to the lobbing of antislavery movements in Europe, to the proposal to allow certain Africans to become citizens of the French nation14. According to Conklin “the Revolution convinced the French that they were the foremost people of the universe and that la grande nation had an obligation to carry their revolutionary ideals beyond France’s borders”15. French colonisation was a mission to civilize and despite of the changing ways in order to fulfil this aim, it was based on the perception of African identity as not civilized, not mastering nature, not dealing with commercial exchanges and subjected to political tyranny and superstition, i.e. in need of French civilization.

1.b From darkness to light How did this perception of people as to be civilized come out from historical narration in the schools of French West Africa? As we said before the school system was aimed at helping out the French with the colonies’ administration mainly in translation and in executing orders: French was

9 See Aliuom Fantouré, L’homme du Troupeau du Sahel, Editions Présence Africaine, Paris, 1979. 10 See Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to civilize. The Republican idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895 - 1930, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1997, p. 74. 11 Ibidem. 12 Ibidem, p. 77. 13 Ibidem, p. 117. 14 Ibidem, p. 103. 15 Ibidem, p. 17. 4 to be taught in order to make administration more efficient. According to Gail P. Kelly16 60% of the time schedule in French colonial schooling was devoted to learning French language. However what kind of texts were used to help African students improve their language skills? Young African students would handle books which contained descriptions of issues such as: war and peace, the daily life of indigenous people, African and European housing, technical improvements, colonial mission’s merits, nature, family, celebrations, fairy tales and weather. Most of these books were written by French people (school directors, explorers, geographers, anthropologists, poets), but we also find texts said to have come from local popular traditions, even if the extent to which they are faithful to African oral traditions is not clear; indeed they may well have been grafted by French production.

As well as fictional literature17, the African colonial bibliography contains pedagogical reviews such as Bulletin de l’Enseignement de l’Afrique Occidentale Française. Such reviews contained guide-lines about the chosen programme, the goals the teachers had to pursue, as well as the attitude they had to maintain with their students. African students were considered atypical in comparison to French ones. The choice of texts to be used by the African students, the selection of exercises to complete and the range of words used to extend the students’ vocabulary, were initially based on political criteria and subsequently weighted by the individual teacher depending on his students. Colonial school programmes where not comparable to those in the mother country. This drop in education was modelled by the colonizers according to the idea they had about African mentality and needs. School programmes were levelled to the “intellectual incapacity” of the African being with the necessity to “carefully weight out the knowledge African population could absorb”18 and with the imperial need to create indigenous auxiliaries cadre.

It was obligatory for African teaching to be given in French 19. Teachers were prohibited from using African languages and students faced disciplinary measures whenever they spoke their own mother tongue inside the school courtyard.

According to the French historian Suret-Canale, colonialism was essentially negative 20 in a cultural sense: it was based on the negation and, whenever possible, the destruction of cultural institutions and valued inherited from the pre colonial era. The French colonial government saw the recognition of indigenous cultural tradition as a possible weapon in the hands of autochthonous

16 See Gail P. Kelly, The Presentation of Indigenous Society in the Schools of French West Africa and Indochina, 1918 to 1938, in « Comparative Studies in Society and History », Vol. 26, No. 3 (Jul. 1984), pp. 523-542 17 See Mamadou et Bineta series, Moussa et Gi-gla, Mon Ami Koffi, cited by G. Kelly, The presentation of Indigenous society in the schools of West French Africa and Indochina, 1918 to 1938, in « Comparative Studies in Society and History », Vol. 26, No.3 (Jul. 1984), ), pp. 523-542, p. 527. 18 See A. Moumouni, L’éducation en Afrique, Présence africaine, Paris, 1998, p. 57. 19 Ibidem, p. 55. 20 See J. Suret-Canale, Afrique noire. L’ère coloniale 1900 – 1945, Editions sociales, Paris, 1964, p. 460. 5 people and as a resistance tool. For this reason colonial text books did not make any reference to the

25,000 students who attended Marabouts’ teaching in the Guinean colony in 1906.21 School programmes and books had to convince the young African of black inferiority, of his ancestors’ barbarism and of the colonizing nation’s generosity. The following examples describe the French colonization ending the chiefs’ tyranny and bringing peace, schooling and progress in the history programme: Elementary course : What black people were once upon a time. What they are nowadays. What they owe to French people. Give some simple and right notions about France and French people. Intermediate course: French West Africa at one time. Invasions of black countries by white race population : Fulani22, Berbers, Arabs, Moroccans, Europeans, French. French colonizing and civilizing genius. Their history’s big eras. Their inventions. Their institutions. Their civilization. The founding of their colonial empire. Commercial societies. The French people’s contact with black Africans till the end of XIX century.23 The falsification for the legitimization of colonialism was primarily based on teaching history. In the school classes students could hear such sentences as : “Our ancestors, the Gallic”, “Let’s celebrate our brave chefs who took Samory24! No more swords, no more slaves, thank you”, “In the colonies France treats indigenous people like sons”25. In 1924 the General Governor Roume pointed out the political aims of the geography and history programs for the African populations:

...With a successful teaching, we need to help the indigenous to properly place his race and his civilization in relation to other races and civilisations past and present. It is an excellent means to attenuate the attitude of the indigenous person we reproved him, to make him more modest, inculcating him a solid and well-reasoned loyalism. All of the history and geography teaching must show that France is a rich and powerful nation, able to make itself respected; yet at the same time a country noble in its feelings, a generous one. A nation that never withdrew from human and economical sacrifices in order to free subjugated people and enable savage populations to benefit from peace and colonization’s advantages.26

French colonizers even reached the point of denying the conquest of African territories, in order to place them within a natural belonging to the French nation, as the pedagogical review of French West Africa depicts: French West Africa is no more (it has almost never been) a “conquered land” by France, it is an integral part of the French nation, just like the Artois and the Roussillon, once upon a time conquered to the Austrian House and I know all of you are proud of the French name 27 .

21 Ibidem, p. 461. We do also have to remember that for Fulani living in Guinea the ability to master a language was necessary in order to understand the holy message of Allah. 22 We want to focus the reader’s attention on the fact that the Fulani are described as invaders of white race. 23 See A. Moumouni, L’éducation en Afrique, Présence africaine, Paris, 1998, p. 57. 24 Samory was a war chief who fought against French colonization. 25 See A. Moumouni, L’éducation en Afrique, Présence africaine, Paris, 1998, p. 56. 26 Ibidem, p. 57. 27 Ibidem. 6 Somewhere else we find recognition of the conquest, but it was positioned into the framework of the epochal passage from darkness to light: In the dense forest some people used to live after they looked for a refuge. Their villages were hidden under the most thick shadows, in a fierce isolation without links, without discipline. There were just hostile tribes, bloody plundering, an entire world dominated by fear and hiding in order to live. But here you find that other men arrived, men of another race, audacious, brave, who didn’t fear neither the forest, nor the inhospitable and hard coasts […]. They came from the Mediterranean rivers where many civilizations were shaped, where our spirits were shaped, from where all of the light and brightness comes to us. These men pushed by the knowledge’s desire used to go on their thin boats, without compass, guided by stars. They got to the rivers, entered in the middle of the forest, got in contact with ferocious populations and brought the first ferments that will later on deeply modify the black continent… They used to go from a world to the other, making their huge flags and winner boats twirling in the big ocean. They appeared on the African coasts as the Announcers of a new Era… On the coast, inside the inland, further on the great forest and the pestilent swamps and burning savannas, they left some shining traces on their way […]. But after this there was a big silence, a sort of drowsiness. Just some traffickers- and what a kind of traffickers – were on the coasts. Years passed by, many years. And suddenly Europe was again taken by this adventures’ desire… Africa is next door. Algeria is conquered, ahead sentry of all of these unknown lands: Tombouctou, the Niger, Gao, images that pass by […] It is the conquest, the seizure of possession; the organisation, the mise en valeur. Officers, colonizers, traders, brought new ideas. At the beginning the populations undergo, then they accept the new situation; even better, they get adapted to it. Once more, humanity has found a new field of moral and material conquest.28 Africa was depicted as a bloody place, inhabited by violent men, a place which had been much irradiated by the light of European progress. According to this perception, the African continent was a motionless, dark body which only came alive during the contact with European civilization. As long as Europeans were not walking on it, it could produce only fear, insecurity, cruelty and tyranny. At the same time, African history was being written by Europeans; indeed it did not possess any autonomy from the guide-lines traced by France and other powers. African historicity founded its source in the old continent and African students had to be aware of this since elementary school. French colonization was presented to these students as a fruitful marriage between two “clearly distinguished races”: There really is an harmonious understanding between two races in our African colonial civilization, that I have never seen anywhere else. Of course, indigenous people are subjected to taxes, but what is this in comparison to forced contributions of ancient tyrants, to raids, to collective massacres, to mass executions of once upon a time? Everywhere assured outlets to indigenous commerce, roads, fair justice. The black man loves justice and French justice is profitable to him, since it is not applied literally, distorted by law’s men, but applied in a human way by understanding and fair chiefs, it is superior to the procedures that have been substituted by it. 28 See A. Davesne, J. Gouin, Mamadou et Bineta sont devenus grands. Livre de français à l’usage des cours moyens et supérieurs des Ecoles de l’Afrique Noire, Librarie Istra, Paris, 1939, pp. 365-366. 7 […] The administration organizes the indigenous mass, protects it without exploiting it as the private commerce usually does, searching for an immediate benefit. And the black man […] respects this anonymous, invisible boss that is the State, which substituted his former chiefs.29 In such a way the colonial government wanted to inculcate the image of social peace into indigenous populations by introducing French politics as if they would benefit the African people and would stop the bloody African past. Even in the vocabulary teaching the profound political change between the periods before and after colonization could be seen clearly: Before colonization : an absolute, tyrannical king; an authoritative, greedy, insatiable chief; abuses, heavy, unfair taxes; distorted justice; famines, fearful epidemics; sorcerers; a magic power; a presage, a tradition; a bloody custom¸ a totem, a taboo, a sacrilege; a human sacrifice; the anthropophagy, an anthropophagous, a cannibal, a slave, a prisoner; enduring war; tribes, enemy races; a raid, a massacre. The colonization: conquest, resistance, a column, occupation, pacification, civilization, a conqueror, a peacemaker, a pioneer, a coloniser; beautiful cities; big works; harbours, dam, streets, cars, railways, post, telegraph, telephone; free teaching, medical assistance; agricultural stations; plantations; new growings; peace, well-being; kind administration; fair justice and taxation; freedom for everybody.30 In the writing exercises students were asked to do such things as: to describe “the miserable life of black Africans” during the slavery period and to compare it with the safety guaranteed by the French government; to retell the legends elderly people used to tell them about the Europeans’ arrival31 and to point out what the colonisers were creating with the money they collected from taxation.32 We can also find some lectures which explained the reasons for attending school and among these reasons we come across the opportunity to learn a language and science, to study national history, ancestors and homeland: What do you do at school, little child ? Then, when I was not yet in existence, when neither my father and mother were, there were some other people that I do not know at all. Dear mysterious beings who made the Homeland, I want to know not only your names, I want to know your acts too. I want to learn history. What do you do at school, little child? […] My country’s school, I bring you my soul. Out of this young soul- even weaker that the body which envelops it- make a French soul, make a human soul…33 Even when lecturers were said to come from African popular legends, the opposition between the Blacks and the Whites always favoured the latter. For example Davesne – former director of school teaching in French Equatorial Africa – used to say that there was a legend from Congo about the world’s creation according to which God created Africa and the rest of the world, black men and white men. Then he filled up Africa with animals and fruits and he gave it a favourable climate, while he made all the rest of the world cold, with snow and infertile land. When he asked Africans 29 Ibidem, pp. 366-367. 30 Ibidem, p. 369. 31 This exercise had a vaguely Orwellian taste. 32 Ibidem, p. 371. 33 Ibidem, pp. 401-402. 8 to choose the country they wanted, they choose Africa and white people were content with the rest of the world. Yet Africans realized very soon they were not so lucky: since white people were obliged to pick the fruits of the earth, collect knowledge and put it into books, they became able to build comfortable houses, cloths and to rule the land and to obtain rich harvesting. Once Africans found out their mistake, they developed the desire to educate themselves. 34 In this way this assumed African folklore became yet another tool to justify the French domination of West Africa. But what about specific local realities? How did Mamadou et Bineta sont devenus grands - the book that collects lectures for intermediate and advanced courses in Black Africa – describe single colonial territories and human groups? Single colonies or ethnic groups only existed as depicted in folklore (e.g. the indigenous fairs in Guinea35), weather (e.g. the Guinean night36), urbanism (e.g. the new city of Conakry37), architecture (e.g. Foulha’s houses38), sociology (e.g. the indigenous family in

Guinea39), agriculture, gastronomy, anthropology. Colonies or ethnic groups never appear as political or historical actors: the African past was referred to only to remind people of its bloody past events, while indigenous institutions, governments and educational system were far from being mentioned. What emerges from such a book as Mamadou et Bineta sont devenus grands is the ambivalence in the French narration of indigenous past in relationship to the contemporary history. A sharp contrast between the African and French realities came out as far as the past is concerned, that is why we find such themes as pacification of the political system or technological development in order to justify the French colonization. The African past was a bloody one; the French past was already based on civilisation. The present meant the opportunity for African people to reach the French model. For this reason reports of daily contemporary life (such as familiar structures, differences between African and French housing) were presented with a descriptive style by the French people. In the description of contemporary history, the two realities were compared but not put in competition (so we find the French house being made up of many more rooms in comparison to the African one; the recognition of African women as important persons inside the African family; the description of well-mannered African children and of the beautiful Guinean night when people could hear the drums). All this created the illusion of social pacification, in a political situation where France wanted to bring peace in the shortest possible time and with the minimum cost (in the mother country point of view).

34 Ibidem, p. 400. 35 Ibidem, p. 246. 36 Ibidem, p. 46. 37 Ibidem, p. 36. 38 Ibidem, p. 8. 39 Ibidem, p.223. 9 The negation of the African sought to prevent the various indigenous entities from assuming any political relevance within their own institutions. In this way, they remained geographical- administrative entities (cercle, colony, region) enveloped by the French nation’s paternalism. All of this had a two-fold aim: firstly to persuade young Africans that the generous mother country was not acting discriminatively towards its Black “sons” within an idyllic atmosphere of peace - reached after centuries of war. Secondly to prevent any political consciousness or organized opposition from developing within the school environment, thus defying the French hegemony. The European authority could not have any rival in the annexed lands. At the same time students had been baptized by the holy water of Patriotism (French up to that moment), had been imagining the exploits of its historical characters, had seen the national flag twirling in the air high and victorious and for years had breathed daily the scent of sacrifice and of the nation’ s victory that was taking them to the progress. That is why many school books brought Africans in contact with the national categories. The school books used in the teaching of language, geography and history was representative of tropicalism. They are a symbol of French ignorance and contempt for traditional teaching and the African pre colonial historicity. They are imbued with politics and aim at creating doctrinal dogmas which shaped for a long time many Africans generations. And not only Africans.

1.c The revolutionary duty

In those colonies deemed to exploitation of the land rather then peopling like many French West African areas, the liberation movement was deeply connected to the trade unions since in these regions the white minority often corresponded to employers. Sékou Touré began his career in Guinea as a trade unionist and there he began to become popular, especially after the loi cadre Deferre in 1956. This law speeded up political events inside colonial territories, which had now to elect a Territorial Assembly, whose vice president was the main party’s political leader. The history of Guinea is a peculiar one in comparison to other French African colonies. On the 28th September 1958 Guinea was the only political entity which opted for independence saying no to De Gaulle’s referendum on the French Community and on the 2nd October Guinea became an independent state and its President Sékou Touré one of the leaders of African liberation movement. Known as the man of 28th September, the leader of the Parti democratique de Guinée had to face serious difficulties after the French political, administrative and economic actors left this African

10 area to go back to France. It was a hard job for the new leader to make all the citizens feeling involved into the newly born nation. That is why the Parti democratique de Guinée made a huge effort to make all people feel a belonging to the nation state. To achieve such aim the single party used all the tools under its control: newspapers, books, songs, images, meetings, marches. The main force of the PDG was its structure which thanks to the trade union heritage was extremely diffused and capillary. People began to be framed inside collective organisations such as the Jeunesse de la révolution démocratique africaine (J.R.D.A.), the Union révolutionnaire des femmes de Guinée (U.R.F.G.), the Confédération nationale des travailleurs de Guinée (C.N.T.G.), and other structures as the Pouvoir Revolutionaire Locaux (P.R.L.) and Collegès d’Enseignement Rural (C.E.R.). All of these structures had to improve the development of the Guinean Socialist Revolution which was a popular movement that enabled Guineans to master their destiny and build a cornerstone in the African liberation movement. In order to be a perfect militant, people had to take part into the single party politics. It was a regime based on a single party and its ideology was overwhelming: people were taught the PDG’s doctrine at school, people listened to Touré’s speeches on La Voix de la Révolution - the only radio allowed to broadcast inside the national territory – or read them on Horoya – the only national newspaper to be legally printed. People had to go every Friday to the party meetings, people had to sing the PDG’s songs during huge mass manifestations that took place on national festivities. People could take a note of their meetings on such agenda as Agenda

Le Militant40. On its first page we find a photo of Sékou Touré in his studio and below it the following writing: AHMED SEKOU TOURE. General Secretary of P.D.G.. Supreme Responsible of the Revolution. President of Guinea. Price Lenin of PEACE. Graduated at “MALCOM X BLACK” Out of these appointments we begin to find out some core elements of this political man. He gave himself the name Ahmed when he began to claim his Muslim faith after a period of socialist laicism. He was the head of the single party and the leader of the revolution. He was also the president of a country which developed an African socialist ideology in order to pursuit the liberation of the black continent where peace should reign after the cruel event of colonisation. People had to be revolutionary and militate daily in order to make Africans masters of their continent, people had to develop their ancestral solidarity in order to make colonizers go away and make Africa stand up.

40 See PGD, Agenda « Le Militant », Imprimerie nationale « Patrice Lumumba », Conakry, 1977. 11 1.d Back to authenticity How did the Supreme Leader of Revolution describe the history of Africa and Guinea? Which historical notions got related to the independence’s liberation movement and to the PDG’s impending political necessities? Here we come to a new hybrid: the national history of independent Guinea. Touré used to divide the continent’s history into three phases: the pre colonial period characterized by a communaucratique41 civil society based on a strong solidarity, despite the several social groups had their own customs, economical and cultural structure. Each on of these groups had “a vague” but clearly African “civilization” 42 form and a “few contact with the outside world” 43. A second phase began with the arrival of outsiders, who interrupted and modified the original life style and transformed the African land into colonies. The contact between these two social groups implied a modification of frontiers, that did not respect the “natural divisions” and contributed to the connection of African economy into the world economy, opening it to the markets and giving more social opportunities. 44 But the lack of the social basis was deemed to undermine the development of this social evolution. Colonization acted a politicy of assimilation towards certain groups and not others, and thus gave to some subjects and not to others the possibility to seat at school, thus making Africa “culturally diversified” 45. In such a way colonizers created deep divisions among Africans and rotated the evolution line: they substituted the “vertical” line of the pre colonial period with the “horizontal” one and thus made disharmonic developments possible in different regions of the continent. Colonization was also a unifying work from the military, administrative and cultural point of view and thus produced two effects. The positive one was the feeling of belonging to a bigger community than the tribal or familiar one. The negative one came from the fact that a unified system could not adapt itself to a variety of needs. During this phase the activities of trade unions, students associations, former soldiers and political parties enabled the affirmation of African personality. Africans realized that individually they could not totally express the African personality and became aware of the need of unity. That is why during the third and last phase they realized this necessity to get associated on a collective basis. The motive-power of African nationalism was the necessity to express their own personality trough their own laws. Those rules imposed by the colonizers oppressed human dignity were to be erased. Guinea had to face the problem of the multiplicity of its tribes and languages. These internal divisions were not to be ignored, but faced through the country’s organization. Touré supported the

41 See E. Wallerstein, L’Idéologie du P.D.G., « Présence africaine », N. 40, 1er trimestre 1962, pp. 44-56, p. 52. 42 See Sékou Touré, The Republic of Guinea, in « International Affairs », Vol. 36, No. 2, Apr. 1960, pp.168-173, p. 168. 43 Ibidem. 44 Ibidem. 45 Ibidem, p. 169. 12 psychological inevitability of nationalism, a phase through which Europeans had already gone, but that Africa still had to walk through in its search for justice, freedom and equality, even if this would involve some mistakes (that would however been deeply African and not foreign ones). In this work trade unionism had to be used as a political and economical weapon inside an African political fight whose primary aim was independence. In Touré’s words independence became then a tool to obtain safety in the search for freedom. Independence made a new political way possible. Guinea had showed it: getting rid of chiefs who used to exploit the population, setting up District Councils, allowing peasants to play a key role into political decisions, founding the unique party PDG.

The party was a tool to reach “human liberty” 46 and “personal security” 47. Inside its structure all problems were to be discussed so that “everybody can learn to feel that he belongs to the one nation, that Guinea belongs to us all”48.

According to the PDG leader African cultural identity was a fact.

Africa is one, its culture is one and identical inside its enriching diversity49 The heroes of the whole continent, from North to South, from East to West, have been described as bloody all along the colonial culture which was completely closed to the historical truth and to the richness of our culture. In order to defend and impose its identity, colonial culture – negative and deformed expression of what capitalist and imperialist powers preserve- acted in the same practical and cynical way all along Africa. Speaking about African cultural identity means to notice that colonial domination has defamed our way of life, our world’s perception everywhere; it has defamed our human feeling and our strong feeling of active solidarity. Speaking about African cultural identity means to remember that the colonial invaders have always fought our authentic African values, those values which make an African out of the African. Speaking about African cultural identity means, in a word, to remember this black night that brutally hit us during the daylight and for such a long time.50

Touré admits that this conception of Africa as a whole is a political choice 51 : it means not to kneel down before imperialism and not to betray the continent. For this same reason the Republic of Guinea has condemned some African governments which became tools of the imperialist cultural aggression. The African remote past and future is based on a community of ideals: the colonial period is conceived as a parenthesis. Africa, whose cultural identity is a lively and dynamic reality, has to reinforce this identity, for better shaping its unity. Starting from a common past , and for a common objective, African people find their identity back, in identical life’s conditions today.52

46 Ibidem, p. 172. 47 Ibidem. 48 Ibidem. 49 Parti-Etat de Guinée, Diversité Culturelle. Unité culturelle. Unité nationale, Revue du Parti - Etat de Guinée, novembre 1975, Conakry, p. 30. 50 Ibidem, p. 31. 51 Ibidem, p. 32. 52 Ibidem, p. 34. 13 As today African people fight to gain independence and liberty, they all have reacted at the same manner before the danger represented by the colonial conqueror who menaced the entire continent. In this way the PDG leader conceives Africa as a monolithic body. Its several forms of expression are not incompatible with its unity: they enrich and make its unity more fertile. The proof for this come from the following statement: In the Republic of Guinea, dance, songs, sport, sculpture, architecture, cooking, clothing, social rules on which a familiar or village discipline is based, social and political organisation, cultural and handicraft activities, etc.. showed and still show particularities according to ethnic groups. If such particularities were not open to be harmonized, could we have create a political party, a nation? No!53 Cultural diversity is thus conceived as an enriching element of cultural unity. Cultural unity helps out the deployment of national unity. National unity enriches cultural unity and makes it more and more perfect. What was then the historical evolution of human societies according to the Supreme Leader of the Revolution? He finds out an early phase based on family as a social organisation that assures reproduction. It is followed by a second stage of organisation based on clans, tribes and ethnic groups. In this era every ethnic group has a form of hierarchy, discipline, obligations and duties. Thus he sees an evolution that goes from an isolated man to a national society passing through familiar and then tribal society. Every phase expresses a need for internal and external balance, a need for internal cohesion and unity of action and thought, of common destiny, of its own identity, of its own responsibility. We find here the upward movement, whose climax is the nation. But the national evolution of Africa is a peculiar one in comparison to Europe. Europe began from nations to build states. Africa has been subjugated to colonial perturbation. This perturbation cut ancient nations and juxtaposed pieces of ancient nations to make them colonial territories. Inheriting these territories, Africa had to start from independent states to build nations. These nations have to adopt their people’s language . Here is the singularity of the African case since according to Touré “the slave trade gave a lethal blow to the formation process of African nations”. If colonial territories - organized into African states - have to become real nations, it is necessary that ethnic groups, tribes, all of the social groups organised inside the nation, accept their dialectic integration as a necessity. It is necessary to go beyond them in order to built solid bases and the unity of the new nation. In such a situation where every social group has its particularities, differences have to stop so that their unity of action, their collective responsibilities about conception, about decision, about the achievement of all the objectives, would be made easier.

53 Ibidem, p. 24. 14 That is why tribalism in the contemporary phase of the African continent’s evolution has to disappear. The aim is to allow the integration of all the ethnic groups and the dialectic fusion into a coherent homogeneous, democratic and dynamic national unity. Tribalism is harmful because it becomes a reason for paralysis and a spring of contradictions which will be used by the forces of evil in order to keep the population underdeveloped and exploited. The ethnic basis of the African state’s organization restrains the emancipation of the whole national community. For this reason to protect an ethnic minority through juridical dispositions means to condemn it to be blind before the social action that aims at building a country. Sékou Touré connects the fight against tribalism with the equality of opportunities for everyone. Colonialism in order to enforce its arbitrary power acted so that ethnic groups were living in separated social groups, undergoing the ostracism of the others. Colonizers by according a special treatment to some ethnic groups and not to others; by granting instruction to some ethnic groups and not to others made the educated people perceive those ethnic groups without education as savages. In the colonial era school teaching made some elites fall in contradiction with their people’s life. It is necessary to educate the population, to make it forget discriminatory attitudes, clan’s sense of belonging, social and religious oppressions, regionalism, irrational behaviours. People have to go beyond the tribal, racial, religious or ethnic dimension in order to become citizens with equal opportunities. The problem of tribalism was not to be ignored, since 1959 Sékou Touré was aware of this: Of course, we in Guinea have our problems. Our country includes many tribes, speaking some twenty different languages. This is a problem which has to be tackled. It is no good shutting one’s eyes to ignore the fact of our internal divisions; it is better to tackle them head on. We must organize the country. At first there has naturally been opposition, but in two, three, or five years our people will have forgotten this. 54

2. Overturned continuity At first glance it seems that from 1958 the historical narration was overturned by the Supreme Leader of the Guinean Revolution. After half a century of colonial domination African people were now mastering their history and destiny. They were going to make every effort in order to enforce the unity of the newly born Guinean nation and to become a model for the whole African continent. They were going to give an impulse to the social and historical evolution of African societies after the colonial parenthesis. The revolution was going to be a collective hard work to show the entire world the Guinean cultural identity and the African one. The Guinean political class was at last going to give back dignity and authenticity to its enthusiastic citizens in daily life, involving all of them in the revolutionary Guinean project. The more

54 See Sékou Touré, The Republic of Guinea, in « International Affairs », Vol. 36, No. 2, Apr. 1960, pp. 168-173, p. 170. 15 impressive political change was the participation of the masses in this political shift. As we said before all of the citizens were concerned in this epochal shift that moved from an African elite involvement to a mass politics. The alphabetization politics was the metaphor of this transformation. All of the people were to be allowed to go to school and increase their knowledge. While the French colonial system had been trying to make a carefully chosen elite to go to school, Sékou Touré wanted that all the villages to have a school where African students could learn the authentic African history, not the colonial one. This mass approach was clearly in contrast with the colonial one. Sékou Touré blamed the French one because it favoured the creation of people who conceived themselves superior to the analphabetic mass. We have here to remember that Touré himself went to school during the colonial era. But his educational curriculum was quite a short one, even if we find different opinions about his unsuccessful student career. According to the “official” historian Sidiki Kobélé Keïta55 the student Sékou Touré was already resisting against the teacher’s tyranny, refusing to learn the colonial narration about the capture of African chiefs; according to such people as his schoolmate

Bokar Maréga56, he did simply not have good marks. Whatever the real reason for his short school career was, we can justify Touré’s hate against the educated elite of the colonial school with his personal experience and political needs. In his emphasis for mass alphabetization we find the idea that the African educated elite was subjected to the colonial ideology and was a passive accomplice of the colonial violence. As Renan reminds us the core of a nation is that all of its people share a common heritage, but also that all of them forget many other things57. We want to show that even if PDG claimed to be authentically African in its politics, it forgot many things that belong to the African societies. This means for example that we do not have to think about all the educated Africans in the colonial system as people who were totally faithful to the colonial regime. We should stop to think Africans as a whole body. Of course there were people who accepted the colonial regime, but we can say that there were also African students who tried to contrast it. We also have to remember that there were many others who try to exploit colonisation for their personal aims thus using their peculiar position of bridge between colonizers and colonized like the funny African translator of a novel by Amadou

Hampate Ba58 In this paper we will try to show that the generalizations Sékou Touré used in his national narration had a lot of continuities with the colonial one. We will also try to make the reader remember some historical, cultural and political key elements the Supreme Leader of the Revolution forgot. How

55 See Ibrahima Baba Kaké, Sékou Touré. Le Héros et le tyran, Jeune Afrique livres n.3, Paris, 1987, p. 24. 56 Ibidem, p.25. 57 See E. Renan, Che cos’è una nazione?, Donzelli Editore, Roma, 1993, p. 8. 58 See Ba, Amadou Hampate, L’interprete briccone, ovvero lo strano destino di Wangrin, Lavoro, 1988. 16 authentic was his narration? How revolutionary was his narrative texture? Our thesis is that his narration was a sort of overturned continuity: even if it was embedded with revolutionary propaganda - where the colonizers was the force of Evil and no longer of Progress - the PDG shared several unexpected features with the colonial narrative content and methodology. The first part of this paper focused on the French and Guinean narration of African history. In this second part we will analyse some elements of the PDG doctrine and compare it with the colonial one and we will try to show how both of them were more faithful to their own political projects rather than to the real complexity of African history.

2.a The national flag up in the sky According to the PDG doctrine the nation was the ultimate phase of human evolution. Africa had gone through a social progression from isolated man, to family structures, tribes and national community. The past saw a sharp stop of the African evolution caused by bloody colonizers. The present implies an effort to go over the colonial perturbation that cut ancient nations and create a nation out of an independent state (while Europe started from nations to build state). The future will be characterized by the defeat of colonialism, imperialism and neo-imperialism and the victory of African people. The metaphor used in this context is the contrast between light and darkness: the darkness of colonisation during the daylight of African development. This same metaphor was used by the colonizers who told they came into dark and savage forests to bring the light of Progress, Justice and Civilisation. For the French too, the nation was taken for granted and the Republican nation worked out its framework in the colonial territories through specific juridical categories, the school doctrine, the celebration of French heroes, the authority recognized to the flag, the national celebrations, the honour recognized to people who fought a world war 59 for the homeland, the political division of a space inside of which people shared a French nationality60. Both the French and the Guinean explanation take the nation state for granted and they both forget that before colonisation this region of West Africa was organized into political states which were not based on nationalism. This is the case for example of Fouta Djalon. It was a theocratic state where many Fulani people lived. It was based on Muslim religion and divided into nine provinces during the XVII and XIX century. Its political structure was really developed and characterized by different assemblies where political decisions were to be taken by the citizenship, i.e. the Muslim believers. The power was coming from Allah and exercised by the main chief: the Almamy, who

59 The Force Noire was made up of African soldiers who fought for France during the world wars. 60 Colonized people were considered French subjects but not French citizens. They had to gain their citizenship right showing their loyalty to the French government. 17 was elected by the body of Big Electors. The Almamy was not the chief of Fulani, but of the whole Muslim community. Inside this community we both find Fulani and other ethnic groups, we also find Fulani who are not Muslim, i.e. the Pulli who practice an animist religion. This society was based on a strong hierarchy, so we do not find the imagined community Benedict Anderson describes as based on fellowship. At the top of this hierarchy we find the Almamy and then the aristocracy. Now we have to understand that even if this aristocracy is often described in history books as a Fulani aristocracy, it is not only made up of Fulani. In the upper social class we find for example some Mandingues, i.e the Djâakhantés. We so have the impression that historiography acted a sort of sliding from “aristocracy” to “Fulani aristocracy”, even if the “Fulani” and “aristocracy” categories do not always coincide. The citizenship of this reign was given on the basis of religious criteria and not of ethnic ones. According to the African historians

Thierno Diallo61 and Ismael Barry62 during the development and expansion of this reign in the XVIII and XIX century, conquered people were asked to which religion they belonged to and not to which ethnic group they did. According to their answer they could become citizens (if they were Muslim), slaves (if they did not want to be converted) or go on exile (if they refused to accept the Almamy authority). The slaves had both rights and duties in relationship to their master and they were an essential element of the Fuuta economy. According to Thierno Diallo, slaves were a third of the whole Fouta Djalon population and since most of them tilled the land, without their activity the economical system would collapse. This is why we say that both French and PDG analysis of the Fouta Djalon are not faithful to its political tradition. During the Fouta conquest in 1881 the French explorer Bayol wrote about his mission: “Fouta belongs to Fulani and France to French people”63. As we said before the Fouta political system was complex and even if Fulani made up a big component of its population and even if many Fulani took part into the political decisions we cannot say that Fouta Djalon was a Fulani nation state. This is why the expression used by the French explorer Bayol is a mirror of the French model of nation state. French colonizers came to Africa with the nation state model in their luggage and they used it in order to analyse what was in front of their eyes. According to them the world was made up of civilized and uncivilized nations, superior and “to be civilized” races. The French model is based of the conception of power as national but we cannot say the same about pre colonial Fouta Djalon. Even if the Pular language was the lingua franca it does not imply that Fouta Djalon was a nation state. As Renan reminds us a common language does not necessary involve a nation state. There can also be nation state with several languages as Swiss.

61 See Diallo, Thierno, Institutions politiques du Fouta-Djallon au XIXè siècle, Collection Initiations et Etudes africaines, Dakar, IFAN, 1972 62 See Barry Ismaël, Le Fuuta-Jaloo face à la colonisation. Volume I, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2003. 63 Ibidem. 18 The PDG analysis of the Fouta political system was even more dangerous and full of bloody consequences. For the PDG propaganda the “peculiar situation of Fouta” was a problem to be solved. Fouta Djalon was seen as the realm of ethnocentric Fulani who were considered antirevolutionary. This is why in 1976 the Supreme Leader of the Revolution declared war to

Fulani. They were accused of being foreigners64 and collaborators65 of the French colonialism and of dishonouring the Guinean nation choosing the exile66. The problem of a political analysis based on nowadays categories (i.e. the analyst’s categories) instead of contemporary ones (i.e. the categories of the political actors who are involved) is a danger which has to tackled since it permanently produces distortions. Analysing the Fouta Djalon political structures in the pre colonial era and the reasons of its political death, Thierno Diallo writes “the tragedy of Fouta Djalon was the weakness of its institutions: a permanent contrast between centralism and particularism, between the national unity and the autonomy of its provinces”67. This seems to be in contradiction with what we said before about the lack of nationalist belonging among the Fuuta Djalon citizens. This is why we questioned Thierno

Diallo68 about the use of the expression “national unity” since according to us it was not to be conceived as “Fulani national unity” as the reader would be likely to believe. According to us people should speak about religious unity (in relationship to Islam) and political unity (in relationship to the local assemblies) instead of national unity. We also told him that the particularism of the provinces was based on the provincial chief’s desire to get more and more influence on the political decisions and to free himself of the political and religious centre in Timbo. We had doubts about the provincial chiefs’ desire to create nation state since there was not at all social homogeneity. The answer Thierno Diallo gave us is really interesting. He agrees with us since with the expression “national unity” he meant “Muslim national unity” and not “Fulani national unity”. According to him Fulani chiefs were aware their revolution could not triumph as a Fulani revolution, they even were a minority in comparison to local population during the jihad. The contrast between provinces and the centre was based on the executive power and taxation and not on nationalistic projects. But why Thierno Diallo in his Ph.D. thesis on the Fouta Djalon pre colonial political institutions did not clearly explain it? The reason is that his thesis’ director in France wanted him to insist on the national aspect. Diallo told his director it was not at all a Fulani ethnic revolution, but a religious one. Diallo choose then to use the expression “national unity” without specifying that it was a

64 Here we find the topic of autochthony. See Bayart J. F., Geshiere P., « J’étais là avant » : problématiques politiques de l’autochtonie, in « Critique internationale », n. 10, 2001-1, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris. 65 In 1976 Sékou Touré said the treason has to be rooted out the Fulani behaviour. 66 We have to remember that the exile was often chosen as an exit option to death sentences. 67 See Diallo, Thierno, Institutions politiques du Fouta-Djallon au XIXè siècle, Collection Initiations et Etudes africaines, Dakar, IFAN, 1972. 68 We had the opportunity to speak with the Guinean historian Thierno Diallo in Paris on the 25th of April 2007. 19 religious process. The reason was that in the French academic environment in the 60s it was really hard to specify the religious aspect because laicism was considered as a core element of political analysis. Benedict Anderson reminds us that the national community is now perceived as taken for granted but it has not always been so. This is why we say the political analysts have to avoid attributing power strategies - we see today- to actors who did not perceive them. Both France, PDG and some contemporary intellectuals made the mistake of attributing a national consciousness to a society that did not developed it. It is a methodological advise that Padgett and Ansell underline in their study on the rise of Medicean state in the early XV century. “To understand state building, we have argued, one needs to penetrate beneath the veneer of formal institutions and apparently clear goals, down to the relational substratum of people’s actual lives. Studying “social embeddedness”, we claim, means not the denial of agency, or even of groups, but rather an appreciation for the localized, ambiguous, and contradictory character of these lives. Heterogeneity of localized actions, networks, and identities explains both why aggregation is predictable in hindsight and how political power is born”69. It is for this same reason that when in the 70s Sékou Touré accused the Fulani of being anti- revolutionary and anti-Guineans, our analysis shows that Fulani were not organized into a “Fulani opposition”. What we find are some Fulani who supported Sékou Touré, others who tried to oppose his regime and many others who try to survive trying to get involved the least as possible. Out thesis is that we cannot say that there was a Fulani attempt to destroy the national flag. On the contrary we find some Fula people like Thierno Bah who tried to organise a political opposition from Ivory Coast. He is among the fathers of the Organisation for the Liberation of Guinea 70. This is why once more we should not consider the ethnic unit as a political one, as nationalism makes us believe.

2.b The national heroes under their land. The PDG doctrine was so much embedded with nationalism that it was necessary to celebrate Guinean heroes who fought against the French colonisers for the African freedom. One of these heroes is Alfa Yaya, chief of the big province of Labé, in the Fouta Djalon. Sékou Touré managed to bring his mortal remains from France to the Guinean homeland and the PDG organized celebration all along the country71 as we can see on Horoya newspaper, the 23rd September 1968. On that day the Guinean newspaper celebrates la victoire du peuple: Alfa Yaya

69 See John F. Padgett; Christopher K. Ansell, Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434, in “The American Journal of Sociology”, Vol. 98, No. 6 (May 1993), pp. 1259-1319. 70 See Thierno Bah, Mon combat pour la Guinée, Karthala, Paris, 1996. 71 See Horoya, 22nd and 23rd September 1968, p. 2. 20 comes back to his own land as a national hero who fought against the French invasion. For many years African students have been celebrating the Gallic and the French national heroes, now the wind of independence and dignity allowed Guinean people to celebrate their real defenders and ancestors. It was a sort of competition: PDG had to show that Guinean people had men who were at least as brave as the French ones.

But once more we find out that the PDG forgot something about this political man. Alfa Yaya 72 was a chief of the Labé province in the Fouta Djalon at the end of the XIX century and we cannot say he fought for the Guinean freedom because this would be an anachronism. First of all because the Guinean sense of belonging rose up later on. Then it is really hard even to think he was a leader of African liberation movement against European colonizers. What Alfa Yaya tried to do, was to take advantage of the French colonizers in order to increase his power inside the competition of Fouta Djalon provinces. Alfa Yaya wanted to defeat his rivals (the chiefs of the other eight provinces of Fouta Djalon) and in order to do this he tried to use the French political structure. But his problem was that the French found out his project, sent him to exile and later on his political ambitions failed.

2.c One Africa, one love?

Here we come to the point of the political use of African identity. As we saw with Alfa Yaya, a political man who behaved according to his personal strategies came to be considered a good African man and a national hero. This image of Africans, as good people who share a common culture and who were all victims of colonisations and hardly fought against the Europeans, contrasts with the historical development of African politics. We can see how the political identity was used by both PDG and French colonizers according to their different strategies. At the beginning the levelling of African masses was used by the PDG in order to describe them as victims of colonialism. Since all of them had experienced the violence of the French, British, Portuguese, Belgian or Italian colonizers, they now have the opportunity to show the African dignity during the independence. This is why Sékou Touré speaks of mass revolution, all of the people have to be involved, all of the African people have to show their ancestral solidarity. Here again we find a overturned continuity because the colonizers used this same levelling during the conquest. In order to justify their mission to civilize they used to describe Africa as a dark and violent continent: a land not comparable to any other for its violence and witchcraft. It was a land that needed the Europeans to bring Progress and Justice, it became a land where the mother country

72 See Thierno Diallo, Alfa Yaya, roi du Labé (Fouta- Djalon), Editions ABC, Collection Grandes Figures Africaines; Paris, Dakar, Abidjan, 1976. 21 did not acted any discrimination among its sons. French equality was to reign through the European civilization all over West Africa. The political use of African identity was also based on diversification. PDG uses a strategy that goes from levelling to differentiation and than back to levelling. PDG describes the African past as a era based on the authentic African solidarity. Later on it accuses the évolués of being distant from the masses because of their superiority feeling based on the education they got in the colonial school system. The PDG accuses Fulani people as anti-revolutionaries and it will also fight against people who practice witchcraft in order to give to every citizen the same opportunity inside the socialist regime73. According to Sékou Touré ethnic peculiarities had to be erased in order to make the revolution go forward because they were perceived by the PDG as anti-revolutionary elements. PDG prevented ethnic groups from assuming a political dimension. This is why ethnic differences are celebrated on tourist guides74 and during cultural festivals, while they are fought as a form of tribalism, regionalism and collaborationists of neo imperialism. Africa has to develop its cultural unity. In the French colonial era we find an opposite strategy: from differentiation to levelling and then back to differentiation. During the conquest, French political maps showed ethnic groups as political units. French history books described Africa as a land full of tribes where all of the people where fighting between each other. It was France who brought Peace and Equality, this is why in colonial books we find the image of ethnic differences as folklore. The colonial system began to deny a political dimension to ethnic groups that became tourist attractions. But nowadays on European mass media we still find the image of Africa as a land where ancestral ethnic groups fight each other. We have to overcome this political use of African identity and to analyse its history focusing on its banality. This is the theoretical approach the French researcher Jean François Bayart supports: we have to understand that African societies are like the others75. We have to study their historicity and their social phenomena. In this way we will find out for example that some of those évolués so much criticized by Sékou Touré were the first political actors who supported the independence in the 50s. The choice of PDG to say no to the Gaulle’s referendum came really late. The African students were the people who organized many conferences in order to inform the people about the opportunities of independence. One of them, Mahmadou Bah says that during the pre referendum period many African people were not attracted at all by the independence opportunity: they believed that Africans were not even

73 See Claude Rivière, Fétichisme et démistification. L’exemple guinéen, Afrique Documents, Dakar, nos. 102-103, 1969, pp. 131-168. 74 See The Secretary of State for Information and Tourism, Guinea and its people, Office of the Secretary of State for Information and Tourism, Conkary, 1965. 75 See Jean François Bayart, L’Etat en Afrique. La politique du ventre, Fayard, Paris, 1989, p. 19. 22 able to make a needle on their own. During the referendum it was the students who had to control the voting procedures as they were the only people able to write and read. All of those African students we interviewed told us they made electoral fraud in order to get to independence76. According to the Guinean former political prisoner Mahmadou Bah, the PDG decided just at the beginning of September 1958 to reject the referendum which was to take place on the 28th77. What we found during our research up to now is a document were Sékou Touré expresses the wish to go developing the special relationship with the French government since as he says “all the politics that oppose France to Africa turn against Africa” 78. What we want to say is that African political development is complex and the image of Africa as a levelled or diversified body contrasts with reality because it forgets this social and political complexity, usually conceiving African population as a passive subject. For example in the colonial schooling policies Brévié - who was the Governor General of French West Africa from1930 to 1936 - wanted the people allowed to go to school to be carefully chosen:

Let’s chose our students first of all among the sons of chiefs and notables since the indigenous society is highly hierarchical. Social classes are determined by heritage and customs. We have to rest our authority on them in the administration of this country79.

These few lines apart from admitting that French colonisers did not find a tabula rasa, also show us the guide-lines of schooling politics were meant to involve the local chiefs’ sons into the school system. But reality is often more complex than policies. This is why many chiefs who did not want to give their children to the colonizers, sent to school their slaves’ children. In some cases We have chiefs sent to school even the children of their least loved wives80. So even if French policies try to use the local power strategies, things did not always worked as they whished. African people were not passive, they neither accepted a compete submission to French authority, nor they acted according to the ancestral African solidarity: they simply acted according to their personal strategies. Another example is given by Sékou Touré when he says that the slave trade gave a lethal blow to the formation process of African nations81. He forgets to say that European slave trade was made possible by African traders who tried to increase their commercial networks through the contact

76 See Mahmadou Bah, Construire la Guinée après Sékou Touré, l’Harmattan, Paris, 1990, p. 40. Mr. Thierno Bah told us the same experience during the interview we made in Paris on the 27 th of April 2007. There is also another Guinean man who works in Italy says the same but wants to remain anonymous. 77 See Mahmadou Bah, Construire la Guinée après Sékou Touré, l’Harmattan, Paris, 1990, p. 39. 78 See Mauberna, Jean, Discours prononcé par M. Jean Mauberna Gouverneur de la Guinée française, M. Diallo Saifoulaye Président de l’Assemblée territoriale et M. Sékou Touré député maire de Conakry à la presentation des corps constitués, Conakry, 24 fevrier 1958, p.15. 79 See A. Moumouni, L’éducation en Afrique, Présence africaine, Paris, 1998, p. 56. 80 We have to remember polygamy was widespread in this area. It is for example the case of Mr. Abdoul Barry we interviewed in Paris on the 27th of April 2007 who says his mother was not the favourite wife of his father, this is the reason why he was sent to school. 81 See Sékou Touré Ahmed, Du Processus de l’Evolution Historique de la Société Humaine, RDA, n.177, Conakry , Bureau de presse de la présidence de la République populaire révolutionnaire de Guinée, 1981, p. 22. 23 with the outsider82. Pre colonial Africa was not an isolated land inhabited by people who did not care about outsiders, as both French colonizers and PDG leaders tried to make us believe.

2.d. Coloured maps, clearly marked frontiers

Colonial Africa maps were a military tool used by the colonisers in order to write down what they found during the exploration. French explorers came with a national model and this is why they often conceive ethnic groups as political units. The empty maps83 were slowly filled up with ethnic names which were to be substituted by French ones.

Sékou Touré said that colonisation modified frontiers and did not respect the “natural divisions” 84. This is the reason why Africa had to start from states to build nations. This was the African peculiarity, since Europe started from nations to build states 85. This PDG statements are quite far away from the historical evolution of African societies. First of all as Gellner 86 reminds us it is nationalism that produces nations and not the opposite. Then we also know that all of the “natural divisions” are not so natural, but invented. We have also to remember that the Charter of The Organisation for African Unity signed in Adis Abeba on the 25th may 1963 recognizes the territorial integrity of African states. But we want to focus the reader’s attention on the idea of the colonizer who modified frontiers in order to show that the idea of frontier was not always an authentically

African one. The Guinean historian Thierno Diallo reminds us87 that in the pre colonial Fouta Djalon power was exercised on men an not on a given territory. Power was exercised by the religious chief on the believers. This is the reason why for example Alfa Yaya even on exile could command his men.

By this we do not mean that it was a mistake to accept colonial frontiers 88, but we continue to doubt that Sékou Touré was going back to African authenticity. Independent Guinea was considered by Touré as an African pearl surrounded by neo imperialist governments such as Boigny’s Ivory Coast and Senghor’s Senegal. During the Sékou era the

Guinean political frontiers came to mean for political prisoners the bloody doors to be crossed89.

82 This is one of those politics that Jean Frençois Bayart calls Extraversion. 83 See the concept of the silence of the map in Thomas J. Bassett, Cartography and Empire Building in Nineteenth-Century West Africa, in “Geographical Review”, Vol. 84, No. 3 (Jul. 1994), pp. 316-355 and J.B. Harley, Maps, knowledge and power in Cosgrove, Denis; Daniels, Stephens, The iconography of landscape. Essays on the symbolic representation, design and use of past environments, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 84 See Sékou Touré Ahmed, Du Processus de l’Evolution Historique de la Société Humaine, RDA, n.177, Conakry , Bureau de presse de la présidence de la République populaire révolutionnaire de Guinée, 1981, p. 19. 85 Ibidem. 86 See Gellner, Nazioni e nazionalismi, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1995. 87 See the conversation we had in Paris and his books Diallo, Thierno, Institutions politiques du Fouta-Djallon au XIXè siècle, Collection Initiations et Etudes africaines, Dakar, IFAN, 1972; Thierno Diallo, Alfa Yaya, roi du Labé (Fouta- Djalon), Editions ABC, Collection Grandes Figures Africaines; Paris, Dakar, Abidjan, 1976. 88 As Frederich Barth reminds us borders can be consider as an exchange area. See his book Ethnic groups and boundaries. 89 See the description of his way out of Guinea made by Portos. Alpha Abdoulaye Diallo « Portos », La vérité du ministre: Dix ans dans les geôles de Sékou Touré, Paris. Calman-Lévy. 1985.

24 By this we mean that Touré accepted the control of people movements which began with the colonial era. The PDG used to make a weekly radiography of the national body during the party meeting on Friday night and during the national celebrations. Everything was to be under control. Even the PDG immigration policy was strict and based on a complete control of the population: every Guinean who had a foreign friend inside the country had to go to the police office and declare this friend was staying at his place.

2.e The languages of revolution The PDG educational politics was based on a revolutionary choice: students were allowed to speak their native language at school. This was a radical innovation since during the colonial era, speaking local languages at school implied disciplinary measures. The choice of local languages as a reject of French was taken into account even on the national radio. On La voix de la revolution information was broadcasted not anly in French but also in Soussou, Fulah, Kissi, Malinké, Guerzé and Toma. According to Sékou Touré this was a way the make the people involved into the mass revolution. The Guinean alphabet was made up of the different languages spoken by its people: Bassari,

Guerzè, Kisi, Konyagi, Manika, Pular, Sussu, Toma.90 According to the Guinean historian Thierno Diallo the problem with this choice was that the PDG did not respect the alphabets recognised by the UNESCO in the Bamako Conference on African languages in 1966. According to the Guinean doctor Thierno Bah, the language politics and the reject of French was meant to crystallize the Guinean population inside the national territory, especially those who could not learn French and go abroad. Moreover Mr. Bah says that many Guinean students who attended medicine university in Alger had to come back during the last year of their studies if they wanted their certificate to be officially recognized. So we see that the possibility to learn in a Guinean national language could also be connected with political prohibitions and consequences. We have to understand that the alphabetisation politics in the revolutionary Guinea were more and more developed. Even people who lived far away for the cities could have the opportunity to get a minimum education. This was really something revolutionary for many African people. The idea was that an educated peasant could better work for both himself and his country. All of the Guinean people we met say that even in a remote village children could go to school. The thing is that all of this students had to pass exams deeply embedded with the Guinean socialist ideology. Students had to explain some PDG propaganda91, to translate Sékou Touré speeches into national languages and to describe the national geography on the basis of the PDG structure92.

90 See Horoya of the 30th November 1965. 91 See the article Guinée: Baccalaurèat et idéologie in « Jeune Afrique », 28/7/1968. 92 See Horoya N. 2181, 20 - 26 juillet 1975, pp.47- 48. 25 Even theatre scenes and art festivals were based on the PDG propaganda: their plots had to show daily life, to celebrate the efforts Sékou Touré made all along his life to give Africans their dignity back, to represent African resistance to European invasion93.

Conclusion Sékou Touré, known later on as Ahmed, General Secretary of P.D.G., Supreme Responsible of the Revolution and President of Guinea is considered by both his supporters and his opponents as the symbol of a political revolution. He represents a radical change for many reasons, among them we find his African socialist politics, the opportunity he gave to many Guinean children to go to school, the violence of his regime and the famous Camp Boiro prison where many political prisoners died. This political change was presented by the PDG as a search for the authentic African personality. Independence leaders allowed Africa could go back to its roots. The idea of the African continent that finds back it authenticity implies the perception of colonial experience as a parenthesis. If we think the colonial experience and its political heritage as something that ended on the 28th September 1958 we would support the PDG idea that Africa was made of good people fighting against the French to gain their national dignity. By doing so, we would also forget the complexity of African societies and their political phenomena, i.e. their banality. African colonized people were not a monolithic body waiting in the dark forest for the white progress to come. Guinean independent people were not a monolithic body willing to execute the PDG politics and singing the national hymn. What we saw during the historical evolution of this newly independent African state was a reinvention of tradition as the Italian historian Anna Maria Gentili94 writes in her book about the necessity of telling the lions’ history and not only the hunter’s. This is why we described the PDG politics as an overturned continuity, i.e. they kept inventing the African identity, covered it with a revolutionary propaganda while at the same time they used a political methodology and content often inherited from the French nation state model. The symbol of this continuity is the national commission aimed at musical, literature and artistic censorship which was created in Guinea by a presidential decree published on the 2nd of August 196295. How could the authentic African personality develop together with the activities of this commission? What both the civilizing mission and the revolutionary doctrine forgot to tell us was that both the French colonizers and the PDG leaders did not find a tabula rasa where to develop their political projects. What they found on the ground was political complexity and plurality of actors. They

93 See the article Spectacles au Palais du Peuple. L’art populaire, source de progres in « Horoya », 16 mars 1973. 94 See Gentili, Anna Maria, Il leone e il cacciatore, Carocci editore, Roma, 2001. 95 This commission met monthly in order to study art pieces and make a decision about their publication and exploitation. See Bulletin quotidien de l’Agence France Presse du 2-8-1962. 26 found out that - as the Polish journalist Kapucisky wrote – “apart from the geographical notion, Africa does not exist.”. For this reason the Supreme Leader of the Guinean Revolution and his political censorship had to describe an Africa authenticity that could fit the specific Guinean socialist doctrine, just as like many years before the French colonizers depicted an Africa continent in need of civilization. The nation state still needs his people to remember and forget what the political authority wishes.

27 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Anderson, Benedict, Comunità immaginate. Origini e fortuna dei nazionalismi; Manifestolibri, Roma, 1996.  Ba, Amadou Hampate, L’interprete briccone, ovvero lo strano destino di Wangrin, Lavoro, 1988.  Baba Kaké, Ibrahima , Sékou Touré. Le Héros et le tyran, Jeune Afrique livres n.3, Paris, 1987.  Bah, Mahmadou, Construire la Guinée après Sékou Touré, l’Harmattan, Paris, 1990.  Bah, Thierno, Mon combat pour la Guinée, Karthala, Paris, 1996.  Barry, Ismaël, Le Fuuta-Jaloo face à la colonisation. Volume I, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2003.  Barth, Frederich, Ethnic groups and boundaries.  Bassett, Thomas J., Cartography and Empire Building in Nineteenth-Century West Africa, in “Geographical Review”, Vol. 84, No. 3 (Jul. 1994), pp. 316-355.  Bayart, Jean François, L’Etat en Afrique. La politique du ventre, Fayard, Paris, 1989.  Bayart J. F., Geshiere P., « J’étais là avant » : problématiques politiques de l’autochtonie, in « Critique internationale », n. 10, 2001-1, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris.  Conklin Alice, A mission to civilize. The Republican idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1930, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1997  Davesne, A. ; Gouin, J., Mamadou et Bineta sont devenus grands. Livre de français à l’usage des cours moyens et supérieurs des Ecoles de l’Afrique Noire, Librarie Istra, Paris, 1939  Diallo, Alpha Abdoulaye « Portos », La vérité du ministre: Dix ans dans les geôles de Sékou Touré, Paris. Calman-Lévy. 1985.  Diallo, Thierno, Institutions politiques du Fouta-Djallon au XIXè siècle, Collection Initiations et Etudes africaines, Dakar, IFAN, 1972.  Diallo, Thierno, Alfa Yaya, roi du Labé (Fouta- Djalon), Editions ABC, Collection Grandes Figures Africaines; Paris, Dakar, Abidjan, 1976.  Fantouré, Aliuom L’homme du Troupeau du Sahel, Editions Présence Africaine, Paris, 1979  Horoya, 22nd and 23rd September 1968.  Gellner, Nazioni e nazionalismi, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1995.

28  Gentili, Anna Maria, Il leone e il cacciatore. Storia dell’Africa sub-sahariana; Carocci editore, Roma, 2001.  Harley, J. B., Maps, knowledge and power in Cosgrove, Denis; Daniels, Stephens, The iconography of landscape. Essays on the symbolic representation, design and use of past environments, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 277-312.  G. Kelly, G. The presentation of Indigenous society in the schools of West French Africa and Indochina, 1918 to 1938, in « Comparative Studies in Society and History », Vol. 26, No.3 (Jul. 1984), pp. 523-542  Mauberna, Jean, Discours prononcé par M. Jean Mauberna Gouverneur de la Guinée française, M. Diallo Saifoulaye Président de l’Assemblée territoriale et M. Sékou Touré député maire de Conakry à la presentation des corps constitués, Conakry, 24 fevrier 1958.  Moumouni, Abdou, L’éducation en Afrique, Présence africaine, Paris, 1998  Padgett, John F. ; Ansell, Christopher K., Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434, in “The American Journal of Sociology”, Vol. 98, No. 6 (May 1993), pp. 1259-1319.  Parti – Etat de Guinée, Diversité Culturelle, Unité Culturelle, Unité Nationale, Revue du Parti – Etat de Guinée, N. 93, , Imprimerie nationale « Patrice Lumumba », Conakry, novembre 1975.  PGD, Agenda « Le Militant », Imprimerie nationale « Patrice Lumumba », Conakry, 1977.  Renan, Ernest, Che cos’è una nazione?, Donzelli Editore, Roma, 1993.  Rivière, Claude, Fétichisme et démistification. L’exemple guinéen, Afrique Documents, Dakar, nos. 102-103, 1969, pp. 131-168.  (The) Secretary of State for Information and Tourism, Guinea and its people, Office of the Secretary of State for Information and Tourism, Conkary, 1965.  Sékou Touré, The Republic of Guinea, in « International Affairs », Vol. 36, No. 2, Apr. 1960, pp.168-173.  Sékou Touré Ahmed, Du Processus de l’Evolution Historique de la Société Humaine, RDA, n.177, Conakry , Bureau de presse de la présidence de la République populaire révolutionnaire de Guinée, 1981.  Suret-Canale, Jean, Afrique noire. L’ère coloniale 1900 – 1945, Editions sociales, Paris, 1964

29  Wallerstein, E., L’Idéologie du P.D.G., « Présence africaine », N. 40, 1er trimestre 1962, pp. 44 -56.

30

Load more

  30

Copy Link